A Complicated Matter, to Mourn
by PepperedPearl
Summary: Because what was even worse, Carol thought, was that Michonne was right. Merle didn't seem worth dying for.


**AN: Author's note at the end. This takes place before my other story Carrots or Peas?, but can be read on it's own. I hope you enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Neither the Walking nor the Dead belong to me, not even the The is mine.**

A Complicated Matter, to Mourn by PepperedPearl

Carol stopped short, hand still on the handle of the door she had come through, at the sight of the woman leaning against the mesh wire fence staring out into the orange sunset.

Michonne turned her head just slightly, throwing Carol a look from the corner of her eye.

"I'm not hungry."

The voice of the dark-skinned woman was clipped and cool, as always.

Carol pinched her lips.

"I'm not here to bring you food. Also, you're welcome that I obviously did it often enough for you to think that's the only thing I do around here."

She tried to control the anger rising in her.

Now Michonne's gaze lingered longer and Carol saw the mild surprise in her eyes.

She prepared to leave, going the way she'd come from. She would just go straight to the guard tower; her shift was starting soon anyway.

_I'm not hungry._ Jesus.

"It's Carol, right?"

Again, Carol stopped and frowned. But then she turned halfway back around and watched the woman wearily. Michonne was still looking at her.

"The one and only."

When Michonne didn't say anything else, Carol made to leave for good.

"I'm sorry about your friend."

This time she froze completely.

"The one that stayed behind in Woodbury?"

For all her words, the first she had ever spoken to Carol at all (hell, how come she knew her name?), Michonne didn't _sound_ particularly sorry.

"I abandoned the group, Rick probably told you about that. I had… my own _business_ to attend to."

But when Carol listened very closely, she thought the other woman's voice lacked just the slightest bit of it's usual edge, that what she said she said just that tiny bit more gently.

Carol turned around one last time and stepped out of the shadow of the doorway and into the warm light of the sinking sun shining onto the bridge between cell block C and E. She had been inside the whole day and the warmth prickled on her clammy skin. It was a comforting sensation.

"You believe Daryl would be here now had you kept to the group?"

"Maybe."

"But you're not sorry you attended to your own _business_?"

"No."

"And if you could do it again, you wouldn't do it differently?"

The sun threw the shadow of the fence on Michonne's guarded face, hiding it behind a dozen squares of shadow and light and making it even harder to read.

"No."

Carol smiled softly, then, and wondered what had made the other woman the way she was, so cold and rejecting.

"Don't be sorry, then. To tell you the truth, I'm pretty sure he stayed behind on purpose. For his brother, you know…"

Her voice dwindled and died away to the end.

Michonne's expression went from a carefully cultivated inexpressiveness to hard and dangerous in seconds.

"The one who beat up the kid? Hardly seems worth dying for."

Carol's mouth went dry. It felt like a fist to the face. Because that was the ugly truth, wasn't it? That Daryl was probably dead.

And while that thought had festered somewhere in the back of her mind ever since Rick had returned, and Glenn and Maggie had returned, but Daryl hadn't, she had been good at avoiding it.

Until now.

She bit the inside of her cheek, raised her chin and tried to put on a brave face. If Michonne noticed the distress she had caused the other woman, it didn't seem to faze her. She just stood there, one forearm propped up against the fence, the other hand splayed on her hip, and the look on her face was accessing, but not sorry.

Without another word, Carol left. She heard the heavy door falling shut behind her. The residing noise echoed through cell block C as she made her way along the upper level, past the empty cells with hurried steps. Down the stairs, second level, ground floor. The gates were unlocked; vaguely she heard Hershel's worried voice calling after her.

She was outside before she knew it, clenching her eyes shut against the bright orange light. The sun seemed to take it's sweet time setting, and Carol wished it would hurry up. On a ridiculous notion she thought that if her tears couldn't be seen, then maybe they wouldn't be real.

Early during winter, when their losses had still been fresh open wounds seeping sorrow and something bitter, something hateful (something called Shane) had polluted every breath they took, during that time, Carol had come to the resolution to stop crying. Not because she understood crying as a sign of weakness. She knew well enough of the relief it could bring. But because things had quickly turned from bad to worse and Carol had desperately, desperately needed a physical proof that she trying, really trying, to get back on her feet. Not only to the others, but most of all to herself. Controlling her tears had seemed the easiest way.

And she had succeeded, hadn't she?

The first, bitter tear fell on her cheek and rolled down to her jaw.

_Yes, I have!_

The second tear caught at the corner of her mouth.

**Stay safe.**

_I did!_

She hitched her assault rifle higher on her shoulder. Long, fast steps carried her over to the guard tower. Long summer grass crunched under the soles of her boots and grazed against her knees. She beheaded a fair share of wildflowers on her way. The air smelled like earth and spices, sweet and alive.

_I did. And what about you?_

Because what was even worse, she thought as she reached the foot of the guard tower, was that Michonne was right. Merle _didn't _seem worth dying for.

_I know you stayed behind for him. I __**know **__you did!_

Carol stopped halfway up the stairs, still like a statue, and stared into the semi-darkness.

There was soft, golden light falling down from above, but it didn't make the scene any prettier. Just four dark, naked, cold concrete walls, enclosing a small dank space and metal stairs winding upwards. Stale air. And a woman mourning.

_Screw you…_

Carol sank to her knees, balancing on her feet before her kneecaps hit the next higher step. She kept one hand on the rail, the other ghosted up to her wet face and pressed tightly against her wet eyes.

_Screw you!_

The sorrow seized her so hard, the first few sobs were almost completely silent, only expressed through a gaping mouth, lips contorted and bloodless. Her shoulders shook heavily as she curled in on herself.

She was back to waiting again. Just sitting and waiting and seeing what would happen.

It was with the thought of a wilted, crumbly flower resting on an empty grave, such a macabre picture, that whatever lodged in Carol's throat came loose. Her heavy sobs echoed in the silence of the tower, loud and shuddering, transforming into a low keen that ended in a choked off sound. She coughed, trying to pull a breath, and slowly leaned forward until her forehead almost touched the stairs.

The pain was like a small hard stone in her chest, no more than the size of a pebble weighing the world. From there it sunk into her stomach, burning a path and turning everything into a consistent mush of hurt.

She gritted her teeth as it manifested as a physical ache in her fingertips, shoulders and under her heart.

In the beginning Daryl had been, in many ways, the proof for her that Sophia had existed and left traces in this world and people's hearts.

Then, one day not too long after the farm had burned down, he had cracked a really stupid (and rude) joke and Carol had snorted softly, feeling some kind of amusement for the first time since _the thing _had come stumbling out of that barn.

"S' good ter see you smile", he had mumbled and given her one of his own smiles back, the kind you only saw if you took the time to look.

So he had become her trigger to try harder every day, because her child was gone forever, but Daryl Dixon thought it was good to see her smile.

Of course, it hadn't been all Daryl who had finally made Carol cling to live. It had been in Lori's thankful smile after the pregnant woman had been sick again and Carol held back her hair and whispered soothing nonsense. It had been in Rick's firm nods and Glenn's hand clapping her shoulder as her aim with a fire weapon got better, and then a little worse, and finally much better every week.

In the intense biting smell of dirt and sweat and tears when the temperatures had dropped below freezing and they had all curled together at night, because it was so bad, but it also was them being there for each other. In the way she taught Beth to make best of what little provisions they had and how Lori and Maggie took her around the backside of the house that they cleaned out one winter's day, shivering so badly their teeth clattered loudly. They had all seen the little children's rain boots on the porch and they were far beyond playing pretend, but the women kept her company until they were given the all-clear sign.

In the way Hershel told her that her small hands and nimble fingers were perfect for what he thought to teach her.

Carol had, still wanted, to keep living for these people because she knew they needed her to. Just as she needed them to want to keep living for her.

It was a simple equation. The way their group worked. All they had left was each other.

But the one thing, the one thing Carol had actually managed to look forward to in a world in which the future was a bleak, twisted thing you'd rather run away from, had been the moments with Daryl.

In the evenings and nights, husked conversations that required just a few words to make the other smile. She had felt calm and grounded in his presence and then he had made her feel something else, something that came ever closer to… actual contentment. And some moments of what felt like happiness. That wasn't something she had thought possible after Sophia's loss.

Their friendship had been her price.

For facing life, for surviving yet another day.

Now he was gone.

And while the rational part of Carol knew she couldn't blame him for wanting to find his brother, another part screamed in bitter disappointment and agony.

_**I**__ stayed safe! Why couldn't you?_

The tears seemed to take no end, and she raised the hand that had been on her face and hit her fist against the metal stairs above her. It was a weak movement, yet she felt the step under her knees vibrate slightly.

Again. And again. The noise echoed up the guard tower.

"God", she whispered. "Oh, God…"

"Carol?"

Carol raised her head and stared dumbly upwards. Maggie stood above her on the next landing, looking down with an expression of worry and shock on her face.

Maggie, strong Maggie, whose eyes hadn't lost their troubled expression since returning from Woodbury and who still felt guilty for giving up their location, despite what everyone told her. Maggie, who had been led to her death with a sack over head. Maggie, who had woken from a nightmare and had lain in her father's arms like a little girl.

Carol flushed and scrambled to get up, whipping furiously at her tears with her underarm.

"Sorry", she croaked and coughed again. Snot was clogging up her throat.

"I was going to come up any moment now."

She swallowed the end of that sentence as knew sobs pushed against the back of her tongue.

Suddenly, dark spots danced in front of her eyes and cut holes into her bleak surroundings as she swayed.

_Stood up too fast,_ she thought numbly.

Maggie was with her in a second. Carol felt the young woman's cool fingers gently pry her hand away from the rail she was still clutching onto with a white-knuckled grip. She let Maggie coax her back down to her knees. The edge of the step burrowed into the space just under her kneecap. Bruises would have formed by tomorrow.

Maggie wrapped her arms around her lightly and Carol rested her head on Maggie's shoulder. The woman's collarbone dug into the bridge of her nose.

Slowly, Carol managed to calm down. Her face felt hot, her nose was stuffy. The chaotic whirlwind of emotions inside died down and left behind a jumbled havoc for her to sort through. Later. For now, she would concentrate on taking deep, steady breaths. Maggie ran her fingers over her shoulders and back soothingly.

"Thank you", Carol whispered.

"No problem", Maggie whispered back.

Their voices sounded like wispy ghosts in the tunnel of the watchtower, swirling up, up and away through the open hatch at the top.

* * *

Some time later, Carol sat at the balcony of the tower. She had pushed her feet through the bars of the railing, letting them dangle in the cool air of the night. All that was left of her tears were the dried trails she felt on her face. Her rifle was placed over lap.

Above, the sky presented a breathtaking litter of stars, so many of them it was hard to find the known constellations as they were almost swallowed up.

To see something like that was no rarity anymore, now that the lights of human civilization had stopped polluting the nights. Carol thought of all the satellite pictures of earth by night she had seen, of the spidery, sparkling webs of light crossing the continents. Then she imagined what the same pictures would look like now. Just darkness, everywhere.

She felt goose bumps crawling up her spine and the outside of her arms. Tried to shake it off.

She remembered Daryl once telling her that to drive oneself crazy was the easy thing to do in this world and that he on principle had no respect for people who choose the easy way out.

_The easy way out…_

There hadn't been an easy way for Daryl, Carol realized. She was certain he wouldn't abandon them for his brother. But she also guessed he couldn't abandon his brother for them. She had no right to feel betrayed by him, but it was hard to fight.

_Nothing is ever easy._

* * *

When Michonne came to visit her later in the night, still some time before Carol's shift on watch ended, Carol guessed all the noise the usually so stealthy woman was making coming up the stairs was for her benefit. So as not to spook her.

She smiled softly against the bars she was still leaning on. By now, her dangling feet had fallen asleep, but she didn't care to move.

Michonne came to stand next to her, straight and with squared shoulders, staring off into the distance. Carol kept watching the dark, shambling forms of the walkers near the gate. Let the woman take her time.

"I didn't mean to make things worse. I'm sorry."

This time, Michonne sounded like she meant it. The words were soft and heartfelt. It was almost strange hearing her like this.

"It wasn't your fault. You told me nothing I didn't know already."

_Just made it a little bit more real. _

"Rick and I will be leaving in a few hours."

Carol closed her eyes. She was still all over the place, only regrouping little by little. But that had to be put aside now. It was time to face the facts.

They weren't as safe as they thought they were, it had been an illusion.

Daryl had been missing for fifteen hours.

And Rick and Michonne were going back to Woodbury.

Carol looked up at Michonne. She was a dark silhouette against the bright night sky.

"You keep going back. More unfinished _business _to attend to?"

She was sure Michonne wouldn't answer.

"A friend."

Maybe it didn't surprise carol as much as it should have. She watched the woman a little while longer.

Carol had wanted to come along to Woodbury. But Rick had said she wasn't ready. Too dangerous. He was right, Carol understood that. This was a whole other level. But in that moment Carol realized that one day she wanted to be ready for situations like this. To safe and protect her strange little family. And no matter what the next day would bring, she would try her damn hardest to get there. She owed that to everyone. To Sophia. To Daryl.

Suddenly she was glad she had cried. It now made her able to look past tomorrow and all it's possible outcomes. It was a liberating feeling.

Mourning was a complicated thing, Carol pondered. And tears weren't so easy to control after all.

**AN: Aaaand it's gotten late again. Anyway, I didn't plan to write this, it rather sneaked up on me and wrote itself. In retrospect I really like it because I find Carol such an interesting character and this gave me the chance to explore her for a bit. **

**As always, letting me know what you think will be greatly appreciated! I'm in the middle of writing more than one story for this arc and reviews are not only extremly helpful, but also motivate me incredibly!**

**Finally, a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! **


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